


Jehan Prouvaire, Forever

by Eldalire



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Immortal, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:44:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7901878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldalire/pseuds/Eldalire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feuilly isn't sure what to think when he finds out that Jehan has been living far longer than the average person, so Jehan tells Feuilly everything, starting from the very beginning of his long life, one lifetime at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Box

Feuilly smiled at Jehan as he unpacked one of their many moving boxes, carefully removing each of the china dishes and placing them on the countertop. He looked up and smiled when he realized Feuilly staring, and they both laughed.

 

           “I love this house.” Feuilly said, sitting down beside Jehan, wrapping him in a hug.

 

           “It’s very sweet. Right by the ocean.” He replied, looking out the back window. Their little cottage overlooked the water from where it sat on a hill, their little neighborhood quiet and removed. Though they missed their friends in the city, Jehan’s job as a librarian brought them away. Jehan didn’t seem to mind. He had always been a bit withdrawn, never really getting attached to anyone or anything. And Feuilly was happy as long as Jehan was happy. So they moved.

 

           Feuilly had been immediately drawn to Jehan when they met at a mutual friend’s club at their university. Jehan was so very intelligent, and seemed like an old soul, someone warm and welcoming, and yet somehow removed, like the sun—always there, but always out of reach. He was quiet, hardly speaking, and even now that they were happily married and living in their own little house, Jehan was still relatively silent. Even so, Feuilly knew him very well. He was intelligent, wise, even, and loved to read. He wrote pages and pages of everything from poetry to prose to papers on the natural world and philosophy. He seemed to hold a millennia of information. Not only that, he took his time in everything. He would spend countless hours just sitting in trees, pondering leaves. He would stop to watch a ladybug cross the path, and would watch his potted flowers all day, just to see the moment they opened. He was amazed by the clouds and smiled every time he saw something as simple as a glistening puddle on a rainy day. That’s what Feuilly loved about Jehan. With him, time didn’t exist. They just were.

 

           As he got to know Jehan better, he realized that the quiet young man lived far below his means. His tiny apartment in Paris was jam packed with priceless artifacts from ancient Egypt, collections of precious stones, pearls, musical instruments, even a suit of armor, perfectly preserved, as if it had been worn the day before. He had closets and wardrobes and dressers and drawers simply lining the walls, all of them filled to bursting with clothing from every century, antique dresses, gentleman’s lavish coats and shiny shoes. His home was a time capsule, containing bits and pieces of every period one could possibly imagine. His treasures must have cost him a small—no, massive—fortune. More money than Feuilly had ever heard of, much less had, in his entire life as a poor artist.

 

           Jehan had explained that he was from a wealthy family. He explained he was orphaned young, like Feuilly, and was left a large inheritance. The house and all of their payments were never an issue, and though Feuilly had never met Jehan’s parents, he didn’t question it. Jehan didn’t like talking about money and monetary issues of any kind. He said it made him uneasy, and he never spoke about it. He only continued collecting, only the most beautiful things he came across, and the cost was never a question. He had purchased their house completely and totally, no payments, no debts. And Feuilly never asked questions. He knew it made Jehan upset.

 

           And so they lived, spending time together when their busy Parisian lives allowed them, slowly, very slowly, becoming more than friends. It was difficult to win Jehan’s heart. He seemed almost afraid to become close with anyone. But Feuilly was persistent, and after four years, he was finally able to convince Jehan to marry him. And so they did.

 

           “I never thought I would be living in an antique little cottage with a view of the ocean! I’ve had nothing my entire life, and suddenly, somehow, everything has changed. I have everything I could ever wish for.”

 

           “This is everything you have wished for?” Jehan asked, unwrapping the final antique china dish, just one of Jehan’s many sets of fine china. It was another one of his uncountable collections.

 

           “All I’ve ever wished was to have a home of my own. And to be with someone I love. And I have both of those things, right here.” He smiled, and Jehan returned the grin, however small and meek it was, with almost sad undertones. “Isn’t that all anyone’s ever wanted?”

 

           “I suppose so,” he replied.

 

           “Well what have you always wanted?” Feuilly asked, playing with Jehan’s long, red hair, hair he kept pulled back in a loose ponytail.

 

           “It’s not so much what I’ve wanted…It’s been what I’ve never wanted,”

 

           “Well then, what have you never wanted?”

 

           “I don’t ever want to be alone.” He said simply, standing and placing the dishes into their china cabinet.

 

           “Well I won’t ever leave you alone. I love you.” he took Jehan’s thin, girlish waist from behind and pulled him close, nuzzling his neck. Jehan smiled and ran his hand through Feuilly’s pale hair. It always amazed Feuilly how skillful Jehan was when it came to closeness. He had never mentioned any past relationships, and yet he seemed to know exactly what made Feuilly melt.

 

           “I love you too,” he replied. “I love you so much. More than anyone.” He smiled, though he seemed to struggle with his last statement, pausing a moment before he said it, but meaning it, none the less. Feuilly didn’t seem to notice his hesitation.

 

           “Is everything unpacked?” Feuilly asked, pulling away after a long moment and looking around, empty boxes and bags littering the tiny house.

 

           “I think so,” he replied, sitting on their upholstered sofa, one Jehan said his grandmother left him when she died. It was old, and Feuilly found its floral pattern dated, but Jehan loved it so much, he didn’t mind keeping it around. Jehan looked out the glass doors to the yard, looking over the hill and down to the water, breaking at the foot of the cliffs.

 

           “What about this one?” Feuilly asked, lifting a box out of a pile of empty cardboard, still taped up. Jehan looked over, the wall blocking his view, only recognizing the box after Feuilly had opened it and carried it into their sitting room. Jehan sprang from the sofa in an attempt to take the box, to hide it, but it was too late. Feuilly had already seen its contents, had already frozen with a defeated sadness in his eyes, a look that made Jehan’s crystalline blue eyes tear. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

 

           “Who is this?” he asked, setting the large box down on the floor and looking into it, down at the pile of photographs, letters, mementos, paintings…he reached down and removed one of the top images, a photograph of Jehan with a smile, embracing a young woman in a wedding dress, him in a suit and tie.

 

           “I—It’s my parent’s wedding…” he lied.

 

           “No…This is you.” Feuilly protested weakly, tears coming to his own eyes. “When was this?” Jehan didn’t reply.

 

           “Jehan when was this?!” he nearly shouted, and Jehan covered his face with his hands. Feuilly threw the picture back into the box, crouching down and looking through the other photographs in the box, the anger leaving his face and being replaced by a mixture of terror and disbelief Jehan had seen many times before.

 

           “Prouvaire…Where did all of these come from?” he asked, removing an older photograph of Jehan in Disneyland, dressed in a loudly colored windbreaker and clean white tennis shoes. The light print on the back of the glossy photograph read 1992…The year Jehan said he was born. Feuilly quietly flipped through the stack, Jehan laughing and smiling with friends Feuilly had never met or seen, kissing a young girl Feuilly never heard about, living a life that didn’t—couldn’t—exist.

 

           The next stack of images showed Jehan in a mess of floral and bright leggings, his hair in a perm. In the same stack was a picture of Jehan in tears, standing beside a young David Bowie. Feuilly glanced up at him, standing stiffly, the color gone from his face.

 

           “Is this…Bowie?” he asked. Jehan nodded. “Holy shit…” he continued thumbing through the images, coming across a black and white image of who also appeared to be Jehan, wearing a fringed flapper dress and laughing, nearly falling over as his ankle rolled in a high healed shoe. Behind that was another black and white photograph of Jehan in a newsboy hat and ankle boots, a pen and pad of paper in his hands, a massive, old-style camera hanging around his neck on a leather strap. Many other similar photographs followed—Jehan always with a pen and notepad, his camera, and that news cap…Feuilly bowed his eyebrows and looked to the door, the same, old news cap hung on the hook.

 

           Jehan stood stone still, distraught, weeping quiet tears and simply watching as Feuilly sifted through the pictures, moving back in time, all the way back to the first photographs ever taken of Jehan, back from the 1880s, images that showed Jehan dressed in a neat suit, sitting beside a another young man and a woman. Their faces were straight, stoic. Beneath the pictures began the piles of artifacts; newspaper clippings and pieces of everyday life from the past. An article from 1912 caught his eye first, but it fell from his hands shortly after he began to read it.

 

           White Star Line Titanic sinks on maiden voyage, 1800 lives lost

 

Below the title read a list of names, labeled either ‘known survivors’, ‘lost’, or ‘unknown’. Feuilly scanned the lists, and found Jehan Prouvaire listed as lost. He looked up at Jehan again, sorry he was in such distress, but too shocked to offer any comfort.

 

           “You…This is you?” he pointed to the name in the paper, and Jehan nodded, sobbing. “You...you died…”

 

           “Sometimes I need to disappear,” he whispered. Feuilly stood and looked to Jehan, his pretty face looking to the ground.

 

           “Jehan,” he said quietly. He made no reply. “It’s alright. I…I mean…I don’t understand, but…You can help me understand.” He smiled meekly, and Jehan finally met his eyes.

 

           “You aren’t angry with me?”

 

           “No. You haven’t done anything…except be alive. For a very long time…I would like you to tell me about it, though.”

 

           “But I lied to you. I lied to everyone over and over and over—!” he began to shout, becoming hysterical, and Feuilly wrapped him in a hug.

 

           “Jehan, it’s alright. Please…Sit with me. Tell me about…all of these things…” he guided Jehan to the floor and handed him the first photograph: the one with the woman in a wedding dress, Jehan embracing her warmly.

 

           “My…my last wedding…” he began, seeming confused, wiping his runny nose on his hand. “Her name was Abigail,”

 

           “What happened to her?”

 

           “She died ten years ago…she had breast cancer,”

 

           “I’m sorry…” Feuilly said, suddenly curious. How many weddings had Jehan been in? What number was he? Jehan saw the look in his eyes, and took his hand.

 

           “Please believe me when I tell you…I…I almost don’t want to say it…I feel badly for…the others…” he glanced upwards for a moment before returning his gaze to Feuilly. “I love you. You’re…you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, truly. In my entire life. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.” he smiled.

 

           “It’s alright. You don’t have to—”

 

           “It’s true. You…You’re my favorite.” He laughed lightly, wiping the tears from his eyes.

 

           “Really?” he smiled. Jehan nodded. “I wish you could stay with me forever,”

 

          “I will.”

 

           “But you can’t…” his smile disintegrated.

 

           “Well…I will for as long as I can,”

 

           “I know you will,” he reached into the box, removing pictures from the early 1980s. “I hated the ‘80s,” he explained. Feuilly chuckled.

 

           “Why?”

 

           “Look at my hair!”

 

           “You still listen to all the music, though,”

 

           “I do like the music…” he admitted with a grin.

 

           “What was your favorite time? Like…decade.”

 

           “Of the 1900s? Oh…The ‘20s were fun…” he closed his eyes, remembering, a smile coming to his face. He hadn’t allowed himself to think back on his long life for a very long time…a lifetime, perhaps. “I used to hang around with the rum runners. It was very exciting! I was a dancer, too. I’m so tiny, I passed quite easily for a girl. I even cut my hair short.” He thumbed through the pictures. “I’m very glad things have changed, though…If I were caught dressing like a girl then, I would have been in some trouble…” he shrugged.

 

           “What about these? You still wear that hat.”

 

           “Oh, those are from 1889…I covered the newsboy strike. I lived in America, then. I lived in America until the ‘30s, then I came back here. I was born in Paris,” Feuilly listened, intrigued.

 

           “Wait…What year were you born?” he asked, his eyes wide. The photographs went all the way back to the 1880s, but in those pictures, Jehan appeared much the same age…perhaps a little younger, but not much, if any.

 

           “Oh goodness…I don’t remember…” he thought for a very long moment. “What year was Notre Dame built?” he asked.

 

           “The cathedral?” Feuilly replied, wide eyed. Surely Jehan wasn’t that old… but he nodded. “14 something?” he guessed. Jehan rolled his eyes and gave him a playful bop on the head.

 

           “No, no, no! It’s much older than that! 1340, it was finished…no…1345…I must have been born in the 1350s, then…” he squinted, thinking hard, trying to remember. “1353. That’s the year I was born.”

 

           “How did you…I mean…you look like you’re 20!”

 

           “I just seemed to stop at 20, I guess…I grew up normally until then. I don’t know what happened after that, I just never got any older.”

 

           “Well what happened after that? Tell me everything!”

 

           “Everything?”

 

           “Yes!”

 

           “Well…I’ll tell you what I remember, how’s that?”

 

           “Please. Go on. I want to know.” Jehan smiled, and nodded. Finally, after all these many years, he could tell his long story. He could tell it all.


	2. 1372

The year was 1372, and Jehan Prouvaire was nineteen years old. His mother and father had died when he was very young, and from then on, he had lived at the monastery, eventually becoming a monk. At 19, he was already a very talented artist, illuminating texts in beautiful black ink, leaving no drips, no smudges, and no mistakes. He even illustrated the pages in green, red, and gold, the drawings and paintings reflecting the stories he transcribed perfectly. The other monks said he had a gift, that he was put on this earth to spread the word of God through his writings and drawings. Though he enjoyed the attention, sometimes, he couldn’t help but feel it was misplaced. They didn’t know him. They didn’t know about him.  
  
Jeahn had studied the Bible. He knew what it said, and he knew what it taught. He could recite entire passages from copying them over and over in his illuminations. He knew romantic relationships were prohibited, and yet he couldn’t stay away.  
            Had his life gone the way he wished, Jean never would have become a monk. He had always shown distaste for regimentation and rules, and though he most certainly believed in God, and expected he always would, he would have preferred to worship in a different way. The Bible told that Jesus loved everyone, and though God was to be feared, He, too, was kind and Good. Surely people were not meant to live their lives, the lives God had given to them, cooped up in a monastery instead of seeing the world, the world He created. How he wished to travel, to live the life of a Gypsy, even a merchant of some sort. Anything. Anything to leave his life of repetition and constant ritual.

            Jehan also knew what the Bible told about men…like him.

            He knew he was deviant, if not in breaking the rules of the monastery, than in his own mind, his own body.   
  
            His name was Simon, and he lived the life Jehan so wished to live.

            Most would call him a vagabond. Some called him a tramp. Jehan called him enchanting. He would watch him from the bell tower in the early mornings, when he was responsible for ringing in the morning mass. The bells made his ears ring, but he always volunteered, simply to look out over the small village surrounding the cathedral, and to wait for Simon to wave up at him from the square far below. Jehan would always give a quick wave back, his skinny arm protruding stick-like from his thick, woolen robe. How he wished he could dress freely, to wear what he liked, the way Simon did. He was known to spend time with the Gypsies, and often dressed as they did, in bright colors and flowing sheers. Sometimes he omitted a tunic all together and instead looked more like a buccaneer, in tattered pants, his blond hair held back in a colorful, silk handkerchief. Jehan thought he looked best that way, with his trim chest exposed, his freckles and scars clear to see.

 

One morning in mid summer, when Jehan thought himself alone in the bell tower, he removed hooded cowl, relishing the relieving breeze down his neck. His scapula—the heavy woolen robe—went next. Had he been anywhere else, and in the company of anyone at all, he wouldn’t have dared remove so much as the hood from his tonsured head. But it was so hot, and he was alone…There was nobody to see him in his thin white tunic. Or so he thought.  
            He had been sitting quietly for a long while, waiting for just the right moment to ring the bells—When the bottom of the sun hit the top of the tallest tree on the horizon—when the trapdoor to the bell tower squeaked open, revealing a very surprised older man, his hair grey, his eyes sunken but happy.

            “Brother Paul—” Jehan squeaked, grabbing his robe and holding it to his chest in an effort to cover himself. But Brother Paul was a kind man, the man who had taken care of Jehan from the moment he arrived at the monastery at the age of three, and only laughed.

            “I do not blame you, Jehan,” he said, looking down upon him as he sat on the floor. “It is very hot, particularly here. I don’t know why you insist on ringing the bells every morning,”

            “I like to watch,” he admitted, craning his long, slender neck to look over the edge of the rail at the village. He had already shared his wave with Simon for the day, the sun gleaming in his tangled yellow hair. Jehan scratched at his own head thinking about it. He wished he were allowed to grow his hair long and wild. Instead it was to remain shaved, a fringe of reddish tresses allowed to grow in an awkward crown to show his devotion to the Church. So many rules…and for what? Jehan was sure God would love him just the same with long hair.

            “It is a pretty little town, isn’t it?” he smiled. Jehan nodded, standing to ring the bells as the sun crowned the tallest tree. “I will see you at mass!” Brother Paul said with a smile, ascending down the ladder, but calling back up, “Be sure to put your robes back on! We wouldn’t want the Lord to see you nearly naked!” Jehan smiled.

 

—o0o—

 

Sharing a wave was not the worst of Jehan’s sins.   
  
Every night, about an two hours after the sun set and the monks had turned in for the night, there would be a familiar tap at Jehan’s window. He would rise from bed, in nothing but his thin night shirt, and open the small stained glass window in the corner, above his desk, one of the few pieces of furniture he was allowed. He would open the window, and there, sitting perched like a gangly bird, sat Simon.

            Jehan always allowed him in, and tonight was no different. Simon stepped gingerly onto the desk and down to the floor, soundless as he took Jehan’s hands in his own.

            “You have a blister here,” he said, his voice creamy and light, frothy, filled with life and the promise of joy. He studied Jehan’s long fingers in his hand.

            “You know I copy texts,” Jehan replied.

            “And draw,” Simon added, looking to the pile of papers on the desk, all of them simply covered in intricate letters and patterns, some colored, some gilded, others simply in black ink, the papers hairy and discarded, unfit for a final product. “You make such beautiful things,”

            “God,” Jehan replied, “He makes them. I move my hand, but He shows me how,” Simon smiled.

            “I wish God had given me such a gift. He has given you everything!”

            “He has given everything I need…” Jehan said almost sadly, looking around his simple, dark room. He dared not say anything disrespectful of The Lord, but he couldn’t help but feel God had trapped him.

            “He has given you these hands,” he ran his fingers across Jehan’s palm before grasping it, leading him to the lumpy straw mattress Jehan called his bed. They sat, and Jehan blushed as Simon took his cheek in his hand. “He has given you a beautiful face,”

            “I am not beautiful,” Jehan insisted with an embarrassed grin. “You are truly beautiful. It may be a sin, but I so envy your long hair,” he said softly, taking a lock of Simon’s shoulder-length hair and letting it fall through his fingers, silky smooth despite the snarls and splitting ends.

            “It is a shame you must shave yours,” Simon added. Jehan blushed, embarrassed. He had forgotten about his own hair, cut and shaved in such a bizarre way, different from everyone in the outside world, away from the monastery. “It is such a pretty color.”

            “The monks say it is dangerous. They say it makes me wild—” Simon leaned forward and nuzzled Jehan’s cheek with his nose. Jehan blushed again and leaned away.

            “It isn’t allowed,” he said, looking to his lap, biting his lip.

            “Do you love me, Jehan?” He looked away, and Simon took his chin gently, turning his head so their eyes met. Tears rolled down his cheeks, but Simon wiped them away with his careful fingers.

            “I do,” he admitted after struggling for a very long moment. He felt so terribly guilty, so dirty and unworthy. He was betraying the teachings of the monastery, the place he spent his entire life, even as he sat in its shelter and its safety.

            “Then nothing is forbidden,” he smiled kindly, and Jehan leaned into him, still tearful, even as Simon gently kissed the crown of his shaved head. “What is the matter, Jehan? We are only sitting and sharing kind words. God does not forbid sharing kindness, does He?”

            “I don’t know,” Jehan replied, “but I do know that I am forbidden from having…relations…with anyone. Simon, if we are caught, we will be—”

            “Shhh. Don’t think of that. We are meant to be together, you and I, so it will be.”

            “But we can’t! Don’t you see? We could not be under the best of circumstances, and these are the worst. Whether I wish it or not, I am a monk and you are…”

            “A tramp,”

            “A dream. A beautiful, magical dream that I could never attain, and no matter how much we wish to be together, our situation will not change. I must remain here, and yo—” Simon pressed careful lips to Jehan’s, taking his breath away, along with it his words and his worry. He closed his eyes, and time seemed to stop.

            “Come with me,” he whispered, finally pulling away, holding Jehan to his chest, scratching gently at his bare scalp. It amazed Jehan, that someone as beautiful as Simon could love someone as retched as Jehan, with his drab, brown robes and bald scalp, his freckly cheeks and his skinny build.

            “I can’t,”

            “Why not?”

            “I would be caught,”

            “Not if we leave,”

            “Where will we go?”

            “We will live with the Gypsies. You’re always saying you wished you could travel. Now you can. And we can be together, you and I. Then you can grow your hair long and red, and you can be as wild as you wish!”

            “God would be angry with me,” Jehan said with a sigh, “I don’t want to go to hell, Simon. I don’t want you to go to hell,”

            “I cannot speak for God,” he said, glancing towards the Crucifix above the door, “but I can speak as someone who loves you dearly. You were given a life, a beautiful, wonderful life in a world filled with so many beautiful, wonderful things. Anybody who loves you would want you to be happy. You are not happy here. You are a beautiful, wonderful thing, Jehan, and you deserve to be with the other beautiful, wonderful things.” Jehan shrugged. God loved him…Didn’t He? The Bible said so, the Priests and Deacons said so…But God also spoke of devotion, and not falling victim to temptation…

            “Please do not tempt me, Simon,” he said finally, pulling away.

            “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I suppose I’m being selfish. I only want you with me all the time. I do not wish to climb through a window to see you my entire life!” he smiled, and Jehan chuckled lightly.

            “It is getting late…I would like to sleep a bit before the Matins…” Jehan admitted.

            “Then I will see you tomorrow,” Simon smiled. “And I promise I will not speak of leaving again. I only wish for you to be happy,”

            “Thank you,” he replied as Simon took his hand a final time, lacing their fingers and giving another gentle kiss before slipping away just as silently as he had come, through the window and out into the night.

            Jehan sighed heavily, thinking. Even before meeting Simon years before on a trip to sell the monk’s wares in town, Jehan had longed to leave. Simon wasn’t tempting him. The very air of the outside world was pulling him away. The sunshine called him from his prayer. The breeze tugged at his soul. All nature called to him. God had a plan. And He would see it through. Perhaps Jehan only needed to listen. He pressed his lips together and closed his eyes, thinking silently for another long moment before turning to his desk. He took his favorite drawings…all of his drawings…and folded them neatly to fit into the pocket of his robes. Then he penned a note:

 

_Brother Paul,_

_I am sorry to leave so suddenly, but God has called me to another path, and I cannot ignore His wishes. I do hope you understand, and keep me in your prayers. I will keep you in mine._

_Perhaps we will meet again, someday. Thank you for looking after me for all these long years. For that I am truly grateful._

_God Bless you, and all of the others. You have truly become my family, and I will miss you._

_~Jehan Prouvaire_

he wiped a tear from his eye and pulled on his robe and cowl. They were all he had, and he couldn’t leave in his undergarments. He took his string of Rosary beads and left his little room. He closed the door carefully, sad to leave it behind, but knowing that he must. He left the priory and hurried down the path, his heavy garments making speed difficult, but even so, he caught up with Simon quickly and nearly leapt on him, giving the happiest, warmest embrace he had ever given. Simon, who was far taller than Jehan, returned it ten fold.

            “I want to come with you,” Jehan said into his shoulder.

            “I am so glad,” Simon replied, holding him close. The moon slipped from behind it’s cloak of cloud and shone brightly, casting everything in a silvery light. Jehan thought it looked like Heaven, and he was sure he made the right decision.

 

—o0o—

 

“Well then what? Were you caught?” Feuilly asked, holding the set of five-hundred-year-old Rosary beads in his hands as Jehan sat on the carpet, his ankles crossed, holding his knees to his chest and looking out window, seeming to float away for a moment, forgetting the present and drifting off, perhaps back to his past.

            “We left with the Gypsies. They were always coming through town, selling things, dancing, doing tricks and things…We left with them and lived with them for a long while. It was fun, I quite liked traveling around, especially since I had never left the church before,”

            “What happened to Simon?”

            “He lived to be very old, for the time. Maybe fifty…But I was still very sad when he passed away…It was very quiet, I remember…I held him, and we prayed, even though I’m not really sure if he ever believed in God… Then he slipped away. That was about the time I realized I didn’t seem to become any older. I suppose it took someone dying for me to realize…”

            “Do you still believe?” Feuilly asked after another long moment of contemplative silence.

            “Believe what?” Jehan replied, thumbing through the other items in the box, mementoes from lives lived long ago.

            “In God…in all that church stuff you learned when you were a monk,” He thought for a long time before finally nodding,

            “It might seem silly to you, but…it seems like God has been the only constant. He’s always there, one way or another. Whenever I don’t know what to do, I always find myself in a church. But some things have changed, too…Lots of the religion of Christianity was made up along the way. Things were added. Things were taken out. It’s impossible to say what God really wanted. So I try to live the way that seems closest to the real idea, you know?”

            “And what’s the real idea?”

            “To be humble. To be kind and giving and loving. I think that’s all anyone wants. Even God.”

            “Sorry about Simon,” Feuilly said, continuing to dig through the box of Jehan’s lives, starting with the oldest, the artifacts at the bottom of the pile.

            “That’s alright. People pass away. That’s just the way it is,”

            “Are these your old manuscript drawings?” he asked as he opened a box containing fragile slivers of paper, all of them with doodles and drawings of letters and patterns and illustrations. Jehan nodded.

            “I couldn’t leave them behind!” he admitted.

            “What’s this, then?” he continued, removing what looked like a tiny leather shoe, one belonging to a baby.

            “Oh. That’s a sad story…” Jehan replied.


	3. 1466

The year was 1466, and Jehan was living outside Paris as a bookkeeper for a small church, looking after their many old volumes and manuscripts, keeping them tidy, keeping them clean, helping the priests and monks find what they needed. He re-wrote sections of lost Bible pages, heralded as a hero for restoring them. He had memorized so much of the Bible living as a Monk nearly 100 years before, and was able to read as well as write, a skill not many possessed, including most of the monks.

            After spending 70 years living among the Gypsies, traveling the near east and living as a nomad, Jehan felt it was time to return to Paris, that it was safe to stay once again. He had visited over the years, coming and passing through with the Gypsies, and had visited with his old friend, Brother Paul, in secret. He had little fear of being recognized, in his ‘outlandish’ clothing and style of hair, which he had allowed to grow down his back in a reddish waterfall. Most thought him a young girl. But though he wanted more than anything to travel, he also wished for a place to call home.  
            He found that home with a young woman called Marie, and her young son, a two year old called Henry. Marie was a very poor woman, and she met Jehan only because she was so desperate. She came to the church one evening, after the monks had gone to bed, and entered the small sanctuary, hoping to receive alms, not knowing the monks turned in early every night. Jehan heard her echoing footsteps on the stone floor, the sound radiating up into the vault and down into the foundation, into the basement where Jehan was finishing a manuscript. He crept up to the sanctuary, sure the sound was just a lost child or someone playing a prank. He was surprised to see the young woman, in her tattered skirt, a desperate look in her eyes as she looked around curiously.

            “Could I be of assistance, Madam?” Jehan asked from the door to the right of the altar, the entrance to his underground world of books and writings. The woman jumped and searched the room hurriedly before finding Jehan’s small figure approaching her in the sizeable church. “Not to offend, but you seem lost,” he smiled lightly, hoping to offer some sort of comfort.

            “Oh, I was…I mean…are you a monk?” she asked, seeming almost frightened. Jehan smiled, thinking back to the days when he _was_ a monk, and how he told himself he would never again return to that life.

            “I am not,” he replied, approaching her only slightly further, not wanting to startle her or give the wrong idea. Of course, he meant her no harm, but she didn’t know that. He placed his hands at his sides, standing still, quietly, in the least threatening manner he could think to assume. “I am the bookkeeper,”

            “I-I was looking for a priest. Or a monk, maybe…”

            “They have all turned in for the night,” he explained, quiet, timid, “but I may be able to help you.” Tears came to her eyes, and she suddenly lunged towards Prouvaire, burying her face into his shoulder and weeping. Though startled, he put his large, skinny hands on her back in an attempt to offer some sort of comfort.

            “Please don’t cry,” he said after a long while of simply holding the distraught woman. He lead her to the back of the sanctuary, where a wooden bench was pressed against the wall, and sat her down.

            “Now what is it that you need?” he asked again.

            “Alms,” she said into her hands, covering her face. “I am so ashamed!”

            “There is nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone falls on hard times.”

            “My husband has died, I’ve lost my house, I have no money, I have no skill to offer. I didn’t know what else to do,”

            “Well you’ve come to the right place. You will always be welcome in the church,” he smiled. “I cannot give you alms only because I do not know where they are kept. But you are more than welcome to stay with me for the night. My home is small, but I will share what I have,” he explained. The woman shook her head, turning to the doors of the church, which were opened but a crack, a little child standing in the light.

            “I cannot ask you to house me _and_ a child. Jehan stood and held the door, inviting the little boy inside. He hurried to his mother and held her skirt. “We will find a place to stay for the night…”

            “Please do not let your child live in the streets. Come with me, I insist. I’ve finished for the night anyway,” a lie. He had mountains of work to do, but this poor woman and her child were more important than sorting books and scrolls.

            “What are you called?” he asked as he lead the woman down the church steps, her son in her arms.

            “I am Marie, and this is Henry,” she said, her voice quiet, her head held low.

            “Well I am very pleased to meet you. I am called Jehan Prouvaire,” he smiled back to her as they walked down the side of the dirt road, past market stalls and businesses, heading towards the outskirts of town.

            “Prouvaire…You are the famous bookkeeper,” she babbled and stopped walking. Jehan turned to face her.

            “I wouldn’t say famous…perhaps known to this little town, but—”

            “I thought perhaps you were an apprentice. You are so young! You have a gift from God! I have seen your books! The priest reads from them during mass, and I watch him turn the pages to see your writing!” she seemed to glow with excitement, as if she had come face to face with her idol. Perhaps she had.

            “Thank you. There are many more at my home. I will show you if you’d like,” he smiled.

            “Would you? Would you really?”

            “Yes of course, we are almost there, now,” he pointed to the last house before the rolling pastures began.

            Perhaps it was his upbringing as a monk, or perhaps it was because of his bizarre way of aging—or not aging—but Jehan typically kept himself away from other people. Though he made quite a bit of money writing and restoring books for the church, he gave most of it away, and saved the rest. He didn’t need much. He made himself comfortable in his modest house, but beyond that, he spent little. He was not one for frivolities. His clothes were plain, his house was small. His life, though already unusually long, had only just begun. He hadn’t yet started collecting mementoes. He hadn’t yet realized the importance of his existence; he hadn’t yet noticed his power to protect the simplest treasures of the world.

            He held the door for Marie, Henry now asleep on her shoulder, and Jehan offered her a chair at his table under the window. Marie looked around, surprised at his modest home.

            “I thought your house would be much larger,” she said, looking around the modest abode. The ground floor was only a room and a separated kitchen, with only a table and chairs beside the fireplace. There was an upstairs, where there resided two small bedrooms separated by a narrow hall, but little else. Jehan kept a small garden in the back yard, and only ever went to and from the church. He could get most other things he needed from his garden or the surrounding woods.

            “I am sorry to disappoint you,” Jehan replied with a smile, briefly going into the kitchen before returning with half a loaf of bread.

            “I could put it over the fire if you’d like,” he said, “if you’d like toast,”

            “Oh no, this is wonderful. Thank you so much,” she said as Henry looked at the bread with wide eyes.

            “You may have some as well, little one,” he smiled again, laughing when the baby reached for the baguette. Marie stopped him and broke off a reasonable sized piece for him, instead of the entire loaf.

            “Bread!” he cooed.

 

—o0o—

 

Marie and Henry became permanent residence of the Prouvaire household. Though Jehan wasn’t one for company, and tended to spend most of his free time alone, he didn’t mind having the two around the house. Marie would cook and clean for him in return for room and board, and Henry brought a life into the home that it hadn’t had before. Jehan loved having the little boy around, particularly when he greeted him upon his return from the church every night. He would throw his little arms into the air and shout “Jee-Han!” before running to the door and leaping into his arms. For the first time in his long life, Jehan felt like he had a family.

            But as the winter wore on, things took a turn for the worse.

            In the first month of 1467, a small outbreak of the black plague struck Paris. It wasn’t long before neighbors began to disappear…in bed or in the ground.

            Though Jehan did not leave home often, Maria did. She would often head into the center of town to speak with the other women and do some shopping for the household: food, cloth for clothing, a pair of shoes for Henry, and soon she was feeling ill.

            She hid it well, and continued her housework. Jehan didn’t even know she was sick until she was unable to get out of bed about a week after she first became ill.

            “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked as she lay in the small bed she shared with Henry, who was asleep beside her. Jehan studied the egg-sized lumps on her neck, and she told him there were more elsewhere. Her fingertips were black.

            “I didn’t want to worry you,” she explained. “There is nothing to do for it.”

            “I could have helped you. I could have brought you to the monks, they have doctors,”

            “It is alright. But you must promise me something, Jehan Prouvaire,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “I hate to ask, you have already shown us such great kindness.”

            “Oh not at all,” he replied, taking her freezing hand. “Anything. I will promise you anything I can,”

            “Please. Please keep Henry. He loves you so.” She struggled and coughed, her chest heaving, blood seeping from her mouth as well as the blistering sores on her neck. Tears came to Jehan’s eyes as she turned toward her son, sleeping peacefully beside her, oblivious to everything around him; the sorrow, the plight.

            “Yes. I will watch over him, Marie, I promise,” he said, glancing down to the baby. He felt his chest heave when he saw the beginnings of swollen lumps around his neck, blisters forming around them. He would follow his mother soon, but Jehan dared not tell her. She would die believing her child had a full life ahead of him, a life filled with happiness.

            “I love you, Henry. I love you so…” she said as her body fell limp. Jehan wiped the tears from his eyes and put his face in his hands as he sat beside the bed. The wooden chair creaked as he rocked himself, thinking what to do. He took Henry into his lap and held him gingerly as he slept. He, to, was gone before the morning.  
  
—o0o—

 

Jehan was in tears as he held the tiny shoe, remembering the child it had belonged to 500 years before. He turned it in his hands, feeling little Henry’s embrace, hearing him call out his name as he came home from the church. Feuilly wiped tears from his own eyes, draping his arm around Jehan’s shoulders and pulling him into a hug.

            “You’re right,” he said after a long while, when he was finally able to speak without his voice breaking. “That was a sad story.”

            “That was when I decided I would never have children,” Jehan replied. “I know that if I did, I would only watch them age and fade. I never want to burry another child.”

            “I understand…But I wonder…why didn’t you get it?” he asked.

            “I did,” Jehan replied, “It was terrible. Awful, stinking sores that open and weep, swollen lymph nodes, vomiting blood, a fever…There is nothing worse. But I survived. I studied the black death for quite a while after that…Apparently if your lymph nodes somehow drain, you recover. It’s a horrible thing to have.”

            “It sounds horrible. I’m glad it isn’t around anymore,”

            “As am I,” he said with a sigh, wiping the last of his tears away with his hand. He returned his attention to the box, thumbing through old photographs, placing the tiny shoe back into the wooden box with his old manuscripts.

            “Can we move forward a little?” Feuilly asked. He couldn’t imagine much besides woeful stories of misery happening in the middle ages. Jehan nodded, seeming relieved. He removed a small painting of a…woman? No…Jehan! In a what appeared to be a silken dress with a lace collar and massive sleeves. His green eyes were exaggerated and sparkling. His skin was white and his cheeks were rosy, dusted with blush. An archaic smile painted his lips as he gazed up and out of the frame. Jehan laughed.

            “1872!” he exclaimed. “That painting…oh goodness! _This_ story is funny!” Feuilly listened intently.


	4. 1872

The year was 1872, and Jehan was walking the Parisian streets. He had taken a liking to walking at night, the stars giving him a homey, welcoming feeling. No matter how old he got, the stars always stayed the same. It made him feel young, as though he hadn’t seen the death and sadness of the world. It reminded him of the days he spent with Simon, laying out around a fire in an open field of wildflowers on their journeys with the gypsies, and it made him happy.

            He had been walking quietly for quite a while, and was thinking about going back to his tiny flat. Though he had accumulated quite a bit of money working numerous jobs over the years, he still preferred to live simply, however his collection of artifacts from past lives had grown considerably. His tiny apartment was stuffed to bursting. He considered renting another apartment, one to live in, and one to store his many beautiful belongings. He couldn’t bear to part with them.

            Just before he turned onto his street, he heard a silken voice say “There you are, my darling, I’ve been looking for you for ages!” Jehan jumped, and the man took his hand, leaning in close and whispering in his ear: “Stay quiet, someone’s following you.” Jehan turned to look over his shoulder, and sure enough, a dark shadow slipped into the alley.

            “Thank you,” he whispered in reply. “This is my street,” but the man did not release Jehan’s hand.

            “This is going to sound terribly intrusive and very suspicious, and I apologize, but would you spend the night at my house? You are the perfect solution to a problem I’ve been experiencing as of late.” He said. Jehan raised an eyebrow, frightened and looking for ways to escape. How could he agree to that? He couldn’t even see the man’s face clearing in the—oh. The light of the streetlamp shone, and Jehan was amazed at the angelic face looking down on him. He was a handsome young man, probably about the age Jehan appeared, with glossy auburn curls and piercing blue eyes. He was dressed very nicely, in expensive clothes, and Jehan suddenly felt quite timid.

            “Perhaps with elaboration I could be persuaded…” he replied tentatively.

            “Fair,” the young man said with an amused smile. “but walk with me as I tell.”

            “Fair,” Jehan grinned.

            “Though I see now that you are a young man, you must be aware of your appearance…You could easily pass for a girl,” he began, a blush spreading across his saintly face. Jehan laughed lightly,

            “Yes,” he agreed. It was true. He was very thin and short, for a man, and hadn’t cut his hair in years…probably not since before this young man beside him was born. His face was delicate and his eyes were large and luminous. Many thought him a girl, but he couldn’t care less. Looks meant nothing to him. At 300 years old, he was beyond the shallow habits of the world.

            “You see, I…I float in…specific circles,” he continued, “circles that my father does not approve of.”

            “I’m not sure what you mean.” Jehan admitted.

            “I am gay,” he said very quietly, frightened almost. Jehan smiled again, giving another little laugh. Another shallow quality he was far beyond was the judgment passed upon people of his sort. He kept his own preferences to himself, but couldn’t understand why everyone was so very against the idea of two people in love. That’s all it was. Two people in love.

            “What’s funny?” the man asked, becoming slightly cross.

            “So am I,” Jehan replied.

            “Are you really?”

            “Yes but on with your plan,” he smiled sweetly, curious.

            “Oh yes, my father is not accepting. I was caught once when I was younger, 16, I think, with another boy and he was quite livid. But I think if I brought you home and put you in the right sort of…dress…he would not question, and I could finally get him to stop suggesting women to me. Would you? I have quite a grand home, I could house you and pay for whatever it is you need or want, so long as you’ll act as my…girlfriend.”

            Jehan thought for a long moment. It could be fun. He had secretly been hoping to try out women’s clothing for quite some time. For whatever reason, the thought of wearing a corset gave him a sort of thrill. Plus, as this point, he had most certainly realized he wasn’t going to age any time soon. He might as well have fun while he’s living, while he’s ‘young’. He smiled up at the tall young man.

            “Sounds like it could be fun,” he said, his voice timid, shy, “I think we should try it,”

            “Really? You’ll do it?” the young man smiled.

            “Yes. I’ll do it. But I think we ought to have a proper introduction, first.”

            “Oh of course! I’m sorry how silly of me, I am Louis DuChamp. And you are?”

            “Jehan Prouvaire, but I suppose I’ll be needing another name, won’t I?” he joked. Louis laughed lightly. “You aren’t DuChamp like Leo DuChamp, the aristocrat, are you?” he asked after a moment of quiet walking, changing route and heading to the wealthier part of town, where the homes grew to massive sizes, mansions with front lawns and gated drives. Jehan secretly hoped he was the wealthy son of some socialite. He had lived lowly his entire life, and though it was by choice, he did wish to try out the lavish lifestyle…and this was the perfect opportunity.

            “And what if I were?”

            “You are his son, then?”

            “I am,”

            “Well then this will be a fun time indeed. I am flattered you believe me worthy of your house.”

            “You are quite striking, for a man. I think you will fit in well.” He held the door to the mansion open, and Jehan stepped inside, in awe of the lavish interior. He smiled at the mirrored ceilings and the marble columns.

            “You like it?” Louis asked with a smile, placing his hand on the small of Jehan’s back and guiding him to the grand staircase.

            “It is beautiful,” he mused, exposing his true, wonderstruck self. Louis seemed even more enchanted by him.

            “Not only are you handsome, you are also very sweet, Jehan Prouvaire,”

            “Why thank you, Louis DuChamp.” They tiptoed up the stairs.

            “Keep quiet. I don’t want anyone seeing you until we’ve gotten you dolled up.”

            “Alright,” he smiled.

            Louis lead him to a large doorway at the end of a long hall, and opened it, turning the crystal knob slowly, making hardly a sound.

            The room was as lavish as the rest of the house, with floral silk wallpaper, a dressing room, bathroom, and a massive window overlooking a garden basking in the silver moonlight. The bed that sat in the center of the room was also huge, king sized, and sported four delicately carved posts, which held up a sheer canopy embroidered with flowers. Jehan smiled.

            “Are you sure you wish for me to stay here?” Jehan said gently, “This is…I mean…”

            “Please. Stay. Sleep, now. I will be in my room just down the hall. This is the guest suite, nobody will come in here. I’ll fetch you tomorrow morning, alright?”

            “Alright,” Jehan smiled sweetly, “Thank you.” Louis grinned and turned out the lamp, leaving Jehan alone in the beautiful room. He thought for a long while as he lay in the bed. This was crazy. This man could burst through the door at any hour and kill him in cold blood, and nobody would ever know. But he didn’t care. He had already lived more life than he was entitled to, and he had lived conservatively all that time. It was time to try something different. Something fun.

 

The next morning, Jehan was greeted with a wild fantasy come true. Louis entered the room with an arm full of hangers, each holding a dress of the finest material, all different colors and textures, with different trim and lace. On his other arm were draped corsets and high healed shoes.

            “Ready to get beautiful?” he asked with a snide smile. Jehan grinned and blushed, and Louis took it as a yes. Jehan stood in nothing but his tied knickers from the night before, his skinny middle and knobby joints on display. Louis smiled, looking him over as he laid the dresses on the bed.

            “You look even more beautiful in the daylight, if you don’t mind me saying,”

            “Thank you,” Jehan cooed. Falling in love wasn’t part of the agreement…but…

            “Which one do you like best? I’ll help you put it on, I hear it is difficult…”

            “I like the green one,” he replied, running his hand down the silk skirt. Louis smiled.

            “Well let’s put it on, then,”

            “Well you’ll have to help with this first,” Jehan said, handing Louis one of the corsets. Jehan stepped into it, not bothering to unlace the back all the way, and stood holding the bed post. “Alright, pull it closed,” he instructed. Louis did so, tentatively, with uncertainty. Jehan laughed lightly.

            “Well it isn’t going to do anything unless you pull it tighter,” he cooed.

            “Oh…Alright…” he replied, blushing and seeming embarrassed. He gave the silk ribbons another tug. Jehan held the bedpost.

            “Tighter,” he said, and Louis gave another tug. Though it was snug, it still wasn’t properly put on.

            “Go tighter! Don’t worry you won’t hurt me!” he replied, looking back over his shoulder.

            “You’re sure?”

            “Yes I’m sure. As tight as you can get it, then tie it,” Louis pulled hard, and the pressure on Jehan’s chest was somehow exhilarating.

            “More?” Louis asked, “I’m not sure I can get it much tighter,”

            “Go more,” Jehan assured him. “I’m sure you can get it tighter, there are girls skinnier than this,” he grinned. “Put your foot on my back, if you need,” Louis did so.

            “This seems horribly erotic,” he said, giving a final tug, pressing Jehan’s lower back with his foot as he pulled back, tying the ribbons.

            “Well that’s what makes it fun,” Jehan replied, turning and looking himself over in the mirror by the wall. He was thin indeed, but he quite liked the way he looked, despite the constriction on his ribs. “Good?” he asked Louis, who was staring, his face red.

            “Beautiful,” he replied. “The dress now, I’ve told my parents you’d be coming for breakfast. Your name is Abigail.”

            “Perfect,” he smiled sweetly, letting Louis help him into the sizeable dress, the skirt long and trimmed in lace, the sleeves a pouf. The silk was embroidered with tiny pink flowers, and tied in a satin sash around his tiny waist.

            “Hair next,” Jehan smiled. He loved his long hair, and was excited to do something with it besides just let it hang behind him. Louis reached into the pillowcase he had brought with him, removing hair curlers and pins.

            “Put this on while it’s curling,” he handed Jehan a jewelry box filled with power puffs and a tin of white cold cream to lighten his pale complexion further and hide his freckles. Though he wasn’t really sure how, Jehan applied the waxy mixture to his face, running just a little down his neck, and dabbed his cheeks with the pink puff. He was pleased when he looked in the mirror as Louis removed the hair curlers. He looked just like a young Victorian lady, perfect to help Louis out of his predicament. Louis tied his hair up, and helped him pull on stockings and a pair of white high healed shoes.

            “You look perfect,” he said with a grin. “But I have to ask you to leave through the back door, then knock at the front door, so nobody knows you’ve spent the night,” he explained. Jehan nodded, and together, they look the servant’s staircase down to the pantry on the ground floor and out the delivery door.

            “Now just walk around and someone will answer the door.” He smiled. “I will see you in a moment,”

            “Alright!” Jehan agreed with a rosy grin. This was very exciting indeed.

 

            “Dearest Madamwouisel Abigale, welcome, do come inside,” a butler greeted Jehan at the door.

            “Thank you,” he replied quietly, lightly. He didn’t intend to speak much, as his voice, though light for a man, was deep for a woman. The butler lead him into the woman’s sitting room, where he was to stay until breakfast. He sighed as deeply as his corset would allow, but smiled. This was becoming quite the adventure! The stakes were high, he was in disguise, it was just like a novel, which Jehan was wont to reading.

            When it came time to meet Louis’ parents, though, Jehan was slightly nervous. He hoped they wouldn’t ask too many questions.

            “Good morning, Mademoiselle Abigail,” Leo, Louis’ father said happily, tugging at his waxed moustache.

            “Morning,” Jehan replied quietly, blushing and looking down to his lap.

            “You’ve finally found yourself a pretty girl, Louis! It’s taken long enough!” Leo continued. Jehan hid his laughter with a smile towards Louis.

            “Yes, I suppose I was waiting for just the right person,” he replied. Jehan looked down to his lap again, hiding another giggle.

            “Are you alright, young lady?” the father asked, seeing Jehan’s face turning red from holding back his chuckles.

            “Oh yes!” Jehan replied, becoming more confident in his ability to lighten his voice slightly. “Just very happy, is all!”

            “Glad to hear it! When will the wedding be, then?” Jehan looked to Louis, worry in his eyes. This wasn’t part of the deal…

            “Oh! Um…Well we’re not quite sure yet, but I’m sure it will be soon!”

            “I’d like to meet your parents, Abigail,” he continued.

            “My parents died when I was very young,” Jehan replied. Not a lie.

            “Sorry to hear. Louis lost his mother young as well. I’m sure a woman’s touch will be welcome in his life.”

            “Well I’m happy to stay,” Jehan smiled, taking Louis’ hand and lacing their fingers together on the table, making a show. Leo smiled, pleased with his son for finally finding a ‘proper’ woman, instead of carousing about with other young men. If only he knew the truth.

 

Time passed, and after a few weeks of living with Louis in the grand mansion, Jehan agreed to ‘get married’. They had grown quite fond of each other over the past month and a half, and Louis had even begun sneaking into Jehan’s room at night so that they might share the bed. Though Jehan was leery of getting to close to anyone, knowing how it would end, he stayed with Louis faithfully for about fifteen years, until Louis discovered Jehan’s secret. It was the first time Jehan had ever been rejected for his unusual state of being, and he was crushed, but he moved on, as someone who lives forever must, carrying with him a memento of their relationship: a small painting Louis had commissioned of Jehan for his birthday, dressed as Abigail more as a joke than anything. Even so, Jehan thought it was beautiful, and added it to his collection, along with that first green dress he donned the morning after their meeting.

 

—o0o—

 

“What a jerk,” Feuilly said when Jehan had finished the tale. “He must not have loved you that much, if he sent you away like that,”

            “I think he was only surprised…Scared, even. It is a bit frightening, if you think about it…But it was a happy time. I remember it very fondly, even though it ended a bit badly. I had quite a lot of fun playing a girl.”

            “Sounds like you have a thing for it, actually,” Feuilly said, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Jehan blushed and looked away with a bashful smile. It was true, after all. “Do you still have that corset?”

            “I do, but I’m sure it’s dry-rotted beyond repair after all this time!”

            “Then we’ll have to get another one, won’t we?” Feuilly grinned, leaning over the box and planting a kiss on Jehan’s cheek as he tried to turn away playfully.

            “I think that could be arranged!” Jehan replied through a chuckle when he stopped his uncontrollable laughing.


	5. 1832

“So have you been a girl another time?” Feuilly asked with a grin, only half serious, but, to his surprise, Jehan nodded and burrowed back into the box.

            “It’s a little before Louis, though…We’ll have to go back a little…”

            “To when?” Feuilly asked, looking over the edge of the cardboard and watching as Jehan’s careful hands picked through the piles.

            “Not too far,” he replied, lifting a rosette pin from the vast collection. It was red around the outside, white, and blue in the middle, almost a flower, and would have been pretty, had it not been for the blood staining the ribbon. “1832,” he continued, handing the pin to Feuilly, who held it gingerly with rapt attention.

 

—o0o—

 

Jehan ran down the back streets of Paris, the dawn breaking, his hair all a mess, damp from the light rain. His bare feet slapped the wet cobblestones as he held up skirt he wore. He had been charged with a secret mission: to deliver a message from a barricade, the very one he was returning to.

            The previous morning, when the massive pile of cobblestones and furniture was built, there had been excitement from everywhere. The city was alive, the people ready for a revolution. But since then, the glamor of the barricades, the fearlessness and dreams of dying a martyr for their rights, had diminished, and now, very few were left to do the actual fighting.

            Jehan had left early the previous evening, and heard the gunshots from the national guard as he headed away from the fight—from his friends. Now it was morning, and he could only hope they had survived the night.

            The task was simple: All he had to do was deliver a letter to one of the neighboring, smaller barricades on the Rue Serret, asking for assistance—abandon their lesser revolt and come to the next street to help at the larger of the two fights. They hadn’t agreed or disagreed, stating that they wished to see how the day played out, but would keep an eye out for their neighboring revolutionaries.   Jehan had been charged with the task for the simple reason that he was the only one who could pass as a girl. Common decency stated that women and children were not to be harmed, and were allowed to help the wounded, as well as come and go from the barricades with relative safety, as long as there was no active fighting or bringing of military supplies. Though Jehan hadn’t run into any guards, the dress was more a precaution than anything; camouflage.

            His heart was in his throat as he rounded the corner, back behind the barricade. How had the night gone? It was difficult to tell. Everyone was bustling about, making repairs, helping the wounded. Someone crossed themselves as they lay a body beside the building the barricade backed. Jehan scanned the crowd, through the sea of other young men, looking for one.

            Gaspard, was his name, and he was Jehan’s sweetheart. He could hardly bear the thought of leaving him for the night, fearful he would be gone by the morning, shot down or taken prisoner. So many horrible things could have happened, and Jehan couldn’t see him in the bustle.

            He hurried through the crowd, some of the other men greeting him in passing. He waved them away with quick smiles and promises of explanation in just a moment, turning every corner, looking in every alley, near tears. Where was he? He felt himself begin to panic, but just as he did, he felt a tap on his shoulder and spun around, Gaspard catching him in his arms and running his hand through Jehan’s tangled hair.

            “Oh my love, where were you? I didn’t see you, I was so worried, mon amour, I—”

            “Hush, my darling, everything is alright! Not to worry!” he replied with a smile, kissing the crown of Jehan’s head. Jehan had been small his entire, long life. He found that his slight frame worked in his favor in many aspects, including hiding and disappearing, should he need to. He also found that it made him particularly snuggly, to some, including Gaspard, who was, by far, the most affectionate of any partner Jehan had ever taken, before or since.

            “What’s this?” Jehan asked when they finally parted. He ran deft fingers over the scrap of bloodied cloth tied around his love’s hand.

            “Nothing. A scratch. I was caught on the hook by the door while I was grabbing my gun,” he explained.

            “I don’t believe you,” Jehan replied, his eyes sad. Gaspard sighed.

            “Alright…you’ve caught me. I was shot, but it’s only a graze, I promise. Do not worry for me. Keep yourself safe. In fact, you should leave now that you’ve completed your task,”

            “I will not leave!” Jehan tossed back. “We will fight together, you and I, and if we should die, then we shall die together as well.”

            “Don’t talk like that, my dear. There is little to worry over. But go, now, and tell what you’ve found! Are the others coming?” Gaspard placed his large hand on the small of Jehan’s back, giving him a push toward Jacques Marceau, the leader of their small band of revolutionaries—the closest person to an authority they had behind the barricade.

            “Prouvaire, there you are,” Jacques said with a smile, jumping down from his perch near the top of the barricade. Everything about Jacques was graceful. He was tall and willowy, with dark hair he kept tied back neatly. His face, though pale, was strong and angular, his eyes a bottomless space of darkness, a place to get lost. “Are they coming?” he asked.

            “They told me they’d like to wait another day and see how things pan out,” he explained. “He said that if they come under heavy fire, they’ll take the back alleys and try to make their way over here, if they can, but if they’re doing well, they said they’d prefer to stay put. I heard some of the National Guardsmen talking on my way back here, though,” he added. Jacques’ interest piqued. They hadn’t had much news on the plans of the guard. The previous morning, they had sent a spy, but he had been caught. They were told he was being kept hostage, but most of them knew he was probably dead. After that, Jacques swore he would not send another spy. He was not one for death, despite his current position behind the barricade on the frontlines of a rebellion.

            “And…?” he asked, excitement flashed in his eyes.

            “And they’re planning an attack. Not on us, not today. On the Rue Serret barricade. I expect they’ll be here before the day’s out.”

            “Won’t that bring the attack here, then?” Gaspard asked, placing his hand on Jehan’s side and pulling him close protectively.

            “It will,” Jacques continued, “But there are only so many National Guardsmen. If we band together, our numbers will be more equal. They will have to fight us all at once instead of taking the Rue Serret first, resupplying, then attacking here once they’re back at full force. Whether they want to admit it or not, Rue Serret is small. Once they are attacked, it will only be a matter of hours before they’ll have to surrender.” He explained. Jehan wrung his hands. Perhaps this would finally be it. Perhaps today would be the day his long life finally ended. He was frightened, yes, but somehow exhilarated at the same time. He was nearly 300 years old, and had lived more than his fair share of life. He had spent so much of his time alive in the service of the Lord, whether as a monk or a bookkeeper or something else of the sort, and he truly did believe in Heaven. Perhaps it was finally his chance to see it for himself, instead of just illustrating it in his illuminations.

            “Thank you, Prouvaire,” Jacques said with a smile. “You’ve been most helpful.” He breezed past, his sharp mind already on his next task, whatever that was.

 

            “You should go,” Gaspard said lightly, the gunshots ringing in the distance—the Rue Serret was under attack, and some of the men were arriving from the rooftops and alleyways.

            “I don’t want to,” Jehan replied as they sat together in the back room of the inn behind the barricade. There was little to do except wait for attack, and most of the men were milling around absently, helping when they could, speaking quietly with each other when they couldn’t.  

            “I want you to,” Gaspard replied, taking Jehan’s cheek in his large hand.

            No two people were ever so different in appearance as Gaspard and Jehan. Prouvaire was small in every sense, slender, stalk-like, with delicate wrists and knobby knees. He was short, only five feet and four inches, and appeared almost sickly in face, at times. Gaspard was quite the opposite. Where Jehan was small and willowy, Gaspard was strong and built. He towered above Jehan at well over six feet, and had a broad chest with shoulders that filled a doorway. He wasn’t fat, only large, with a presence that filled the room. Though large in size, he was soft in temperament. Children and animals loved him, and he was gentle in everything he did. That was what Jehan fell in love with.

            It was difficult for Jehan to fall in love…No…Not difficult…only uncomfortable. How he adored falling in love, but he knew it would only end in heartbreak. The harder he fell, the more attached he became, and the longer he spent with any single person would only make the loss more difficult when it finally came. It took a very special sort of person for Jehan to attach himself, to decide to become exclusively theirs for the rest of their time on earth. He hadn’t been with anyone in a very long time…In fact, his first love had been his most recent, and Simon died in 1422…

            “Why do you want me to leave? Don’t you want me here with you?” he asked, leaning against Gaspard as they sat against the wall, sitting on the floor.

            “I want you safe,” he replied.

            “I want to be with you,”

            “But you will die here,” he said sadly. “We came here to die. But you…not you,”

            Jehan sighed. Gaspard did not know of Jehan’s agelessness. He didn’t—couldn’t understand. But he was right. If he stayed, he would die. But they would die together, and Jehan would finally know never-ending love…Something he so dearly wished for.

            “Don’t think of it that way,” Jehan cooed, brushing the shaggy, sandy hair from Gaspard’s deep brown eyes. “We will be together forever, you and I,” he craned his neck, and Gaspard met him in the middle for a gentle kiss, one that melted the world around them, the fighting, the turmoil.

            “I would rather you live. You deserve to live.”

            “I have lived. I have lived,” he replied, hearing the gunshots approaching, the marching footsteps within earshot.

“What do you mean?” he asked as Jacques called through the door of the inn.

            “Positions! They’re here! Everyone out!” the room emptied, and Jehan and Gaspard were left alone. He turned to leave, to join the barricade, but Jehan took his wrist and held him back. This was his chance. His last chance to tell Gaspard of his life. To explain.

            “I’m ready to die,” he said quietly.

            “But why? Wouldn’t you rather live?”

            “Wouldn’t you?”

            “For what? Only for you. But promised my help here…I cannot leave. Not now. But you came here with me. You are not here to fight. You have done your job. Go. Please. Go and live,”

            “I have lived more lives than you know,”

            “Jehan,”

            “I was born in 1352,” he said hurriedly, a windowpane shattering as shouts rang from just outside.

            “What?”

            “If I die today, it will be because it is my time. I’m ready. I want to be with you.” he smiled meekly, and Gaspard took him into an engulfing embrace, holding him tight, tears coming to both their eyes.

            “I do not understand,”

            “Then I shall explain it in Heaven,” he whispered in reply, taking Gaspard’s hands in his and holding them for a long moment, simply looking, watching, taking each other in for one final time. They stepped out of the inn and into the fray.

 

Night had fallen, but the street was ablaze with gunfire. They were nearing the end of their battle, and yet Jehan and Gaspard had managed to stay alive, and together. Though Jehan hadn’t truly come to fight—he was quite a pacifist—he worked hard, loading guns for the others, melting down this and that into bullets, helping the wounded. Gaspard was far more robust, and fought very hard, shooting fast and always ready for the next volley. Jehan was always just behind him, ready to hand him another loaded musket. He was also there to catch him when he suddenly jolted backwards.

            “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he insisted as Jehan held him in his arms.

            “You’re not! You’re bleeding!”

            “It’s alright! Just…Just put me with the others and I’ll be fine,” he struggled to speak, seemingly out of breath, blood staining the cloth at his shoulder. “It’s just my shoulder,”

            “You’re sure?”

            “Positive,” he smiled, though there was pain in his eyes. “Take me back and sit with me, alright? We’ll get through together,” he pushed himself up, and Jehan guided him back into the inn, where the rest of the wounded were kept. Everyone was out fighting, and there were no able-bodied men tending the wounded. Many of them were in need of assistance, but Jehan cared only for Gaspard, who he quickly realized was not ‘alright’. The color drained from his face, and he struggled to breathe. Jehan began to cry quiet tears. He had been through this before.

            “I’m sorry,” Gaspard wheezed. Jehan lifted his head into his lap to ease his breathing. He raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m leaving you,”

            “Do not be sorry,” he leaned down and kissed his forehead. “We were not together for very long, but the times we had were some of the best I’ve had,” he smiled.

            “Jehan,” he squeaked.

            “Yes my darling?” he replied, brushing tears from his eyes.

            “Promise me—” he coughed, “Promise you’ll live,”

            “I want to be with you—”

            “No,” he reached up with the little energy he had left and look Jehan’s hands, bloodying them. “You have to live. If you love me, you’ll live,” he smiled, and Jehan could no longer contain his sob.

            “I will,” he said through his tears.

            “But don’t forget about me, alright? Promise?”

            “Promise,”

            “And—and if you do live forever…l-like you said…then I’ll live forever too,” speaking was becoming difficult, and Jehan knew the end was very near.

            “Forever,” he replied. Gaspard attempted to speak again, but Jehan forbid it, holding gentle fingers to his lips. “Quiet, now. We’ll say a prayer,”

 

            By the end of The Lord’s Prayer, Gaspard was gone, and Jehan was alone once again in the wild world. He stayed with the body until the surrender was called, but hardly noticed the events unfolding around him. Eventually, Gaspard was collected with the rest of the dead, off to be claimed by their families or buried, names and faces forever lost to history. But Jehan kept a piece of him: the cockade he wore on his vest, bloodied and battered…and beautiful.

 

—o0o—

 

“All of your stories end with someone dying,” Feuilly noted as Jehan finished. He nodded in agreement.

            “Well…that’s sort of how I measure time, as terrible as that sounds…The time with Simon, the time with Maria…I can’t measure my own lifetime, so I have to use other people’s, I guess.”

            “How do you stay happy after losing so many people?”

            “I don’t,” he admitted. “After the barricade was the first time I really thought about killing myself. But I couldn’t. Not after I promised Gaspard. It’s strange…After a long while, dying doesn’t seem so scary, almost like you’re ready to leave…But at the same time, there are so many things that could still happen. I could never explain it to someone who isn’t…like me.”

            “Have you ever killed anyone? Like, on the barricade?” Feuilly asked as Jehan leaned against his chest, Feuilly’s back to the front of the sofa as they sat on the floor.

            “No. Never. And I never will.”

            “You’re crying,” Feuilly noted, wiping the tears from Jehan’s greenish eyes.

            “I’m sorry,” he said, “Just thinking back to all of these people…people I loved. People I still love. You remind me a bit of Gaspard, actually…” he admitted, “if you don’t mind me saying,”

            “How?” Feuilly asked quizzically.

            “You’re very big and strong, but you’re quiet and gentle…You’re a bit more adventurous than he was, though. He was a home body, Gaspard…He liked to stay put and keep very organized. You’re more fun, I think,”

            “Well that’s good, I guess,” he replied, unsure what to say. It was hard for him to listen to Jehan, his husband, speaking about other people he had been with in the past, regardless of the unusual circumstances. Jehan had said Feuilly was his favorite…But that’s only _so far_ , and it couldn’t be true…Jehan said that to everyone, he was sure.

            Then, as if hearing his thought, Jehan looked up and smiled, nuzzling at Feuilly’s jaw with his nose.

            “You know I love you so,” he said in his quiet sort of way.”

            “I’m sure you’ve said that to lots of people,” Feuilly replied sadly, but with a smile.

            “I would be lying if I said I didn’t,” he continued, “and I’d also be lying if I said I thought you’d be the last person I said that to, but know that it takes a very special person for me to choose to stay with them. If I were to act in self-preservation, I would never allow myself any attachment, because I know how it will end. But sometimes, someone comes into my life and makes it glow. Those are the times that I’m really alive, and you’ve made me feel the most alive I’ve ever felt. And I’ve never said that to anyone, before you,” Feuilly took Jehan by his skinny shoulders and turned him around, facing each other, and pulled him into the warmest embrace he could muster, and Jehan returned it wholeheartedly.

            “Thank you, Jehan,” he said, this time wiping away his own tears. “You’re pretty good with words, you know that? You should try poetry,” he joked.

            “I’ve had a long time to practice!” he replied.

            “Tell me a happy story now, one where nobody dies,” he said, looking back to the box. Jehan pressed his lips into a line, thinking as he thumbed through the artifacts. What about this?” he removed an old camera, the leather strap worn and dry-rotted. Feuilly smiled.

            “Let’s do it,” he grinned, hunkering down for another story.


	6. 1899

The year was 1899, and Jehan was in New York City. Just twelve years before, his heart had been broken by a certain Louis DuChamp, and he had left Paris, the scandal of his falling-out with the socialite pushing him over the edge. It was easy for him to get away. Nobody knew who he really was, as he had posed as a woman for nearly fifteen years, but he couldn’t stand the thought of being in the same city of the man he had fallen in love with…The man who had betrayed him.

            So he shed his disguise, once again becoming Jehan Prouvaire, and took a ship to America, leaving his tiny flat back in Paris and opting instead for the newsboy’s housing, living with them and writing their story for the very papers they were refusing to sell. He was a firm believer in living what he wrote, and believed in order to write his stories for the paper, he needed to immerse himself. And in doing so, he became sympathetic to their efforts, and swore he would help them any way he could to make sure their message was sent: they would not be paying more for their daily stack of papers, no matter what The World said.

            Jehan had been hired by The Journal newspaper only a year before. He was a very good writer, seeing as he had five hundred years of experience, and caught the attention of the editors very quickly. They put him on many of their biggest stories, to report on everything from murders to city fairs, and he loved all of them. He threw himself into the stories so totally, and he was truly enjoying himself for the first time in a very long time.

            When the wake up call came at 5:00 Sunday morning, Jehan was not ready to wake up. He rolled over on his cot as the other boys pulled themselves from their beds to get ready for their day: they showered, shaved, and dressed as Jehan pulled his quilt back over his head, his hair a tangled mess.        

            He felt a tap on his foot, of all places, and peered out from under his blanket to see Owen, one of the youngest boys, wiggling his big toe.

            “Wake up, Jehan!” he giggled. “Gotta see the headline!”

            “No I don’t!” he protested. “I’m not selling papers!”

            “Yeah but ya still gotta see what it is!” he yanked the quilt from Jehan’s skinny body, the cool springtime air assaulting him from the open window.

            “Oh alright, I guess I have to get up, then…” he said with a lazy smile toward the little boy. Owen grinned, and gave him a hug, which Jehan returned wholeheartedly.

            Owen, like many of the newsies, was orphaned, and simply craved any sort of caring attention. The other boys teased him for being so young and tiny, but Jehan saw himself in the little boy: orphaned very young, nowhere to call home, a bit of a misfit, and he was sure to indulge his need for affection whenever he could. Sometimes, if Owen had a particularly bad dream or wasn’t feeling well, he would snuggle into Jehan’s cot, and Jehan would tell him stories from long ago until he fell asleep.

            He pulled on his socks and tied the knickers he had slept in, then buttoned his shirt and tossed on a ratty vest. Then he hung his camera around his neck.

            “Hey Jehan how come you talk funny?” Owen asked as he and Jehan ascended the rickety stairs on their way out of the building.

            “Because I am from France,” Jehan replied with a little chuckle.

            “Can you talk French?” he asked, taking Jehan’s hand as one of the older boys gave him a shove.

            “Vous êtes un petit garçon drôle,” he said with a smile.

            “What does that mean?” Owen asked joyously, his blonde hair bouncing around his head as he jumped down the last few steps.

            “I said you are a funny little boy,”

            “What’s my name in French?” he asked.

            “Names don’t really have a different word. You would be Owen in France, too.”

            “Oh,” he said, standing at the back of the crowd of boys and girls, all of them looking up through the gates of The World, waiting for the headline. The strike was in full force, but even so, the boys still watched for the headlines, mostly because the nuns from the local church always fed them in front of the gates. Very few of the boys would actually be selling papers today.

            “Still the trolleys,” Owen shouted above the murmur around him when the headline appeared, reading.

            “Well that’s bland,” Jehan said with a shrug.

            “But there’s a big rally tonight! All the newsies are going,” he said with a little hop as the nuns from the chapel on the corner waded through the crowd of children, giving them what little they had: leftover bagels from the previous days, cold coffee, stale slices of bread. Though the food was truly horrid, Owen didn’t know any better, and ate his slice with a grin, handing a bagel to Jehan, who returned the smile.

            “Thank you, Owen,” he said, thinking. Jehan had money. He had quite a lot of money. Enough to support himself and probably all the newsies. Though he knew he could not do that—that he would draw too much attention to himself—he did know that he could make Owen smile...And that was something he needed to do. The little boy had less than nothing, only a single pair of socks to his name. He spent what little money he made on food, as the nuns only provided breakfast, and even that was little more than end-slices of bread from the bakery or, if he had saved up, perhaps a ham sandwich. It saddened Jehan, who almost always accompanied him, worried one of the older boys would steal his money or his meager supply of food. Today he was going to give Owen a treat he had never experienced, and may never experience again.

            “Owen,” he said as the little boy finished his slice of bread. “Are you still hungry?” he cocked his bottle-blonde head. What a strange thing to ask! Of course he was hungry…he was always hungry…but what could Jehan do about that?

            “It’s okay, you eat the bagel,” he replied, thinking Jehan meant to give him his share.

            “That is not what I asked you, petit ami,” he smiled.

            “What does that mean?” he asked with a hop. He loved it when Jehan spoke French, though he did not understand any of it.

            “Little friend,” he explained. “Now are you hungry?” he smiled.

            “I…yes, I suppose so…” he replied meekly. He didn’t want to complain. He was used to being hungry. It wasn’t a big deal…not anymore.

            “Then come with me,” he offered the little boy his hand, which he took with a quizzical sort of look in his bright blue eyes.

            “Do you know where there’s more food we can have?” he asked after Jehan took him around the corner, onto the next block, out of sight of the others. He didn’t want any of them to feel left out. He knew they were all in the same situation as Owen, and that he shouldn’t give special treatment, but none of them were as close to him as little Owen. None of them were as young or as clumsy or as sweet…Jehan was reminded of himself every time he saw the little boy laugh at a twittering bird or stop to gaze at a dandelion blooming between the sidewalk cracks. Though he did his best not to grow attached, he truly loved Owen, and wanted to do what he could to make his little life even a bit better.

            “Yes. Whatever you’d like,” he smiled.

            “Whatever I’d like?” Owen asked, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean whatever I’d like?”

            “If you could eat anything in the whole world right now, what would you like to eat?” the little boy thought for a long moment, twisting his face in contemplation, scrunching his nose.

            “A big, very hot cinnamon bun, with lots of icing, on a china dish!” he mused with a dreamy grin.

            “That sounds very good to me,” Jehan agreed, holding the door to the bakery. Owen looked up at him, confused. Jehan motioned into the shop, and Owen walked inside hesitantly, unsure what was going on, and followed Jehan to the counter, where a glass case displayed a plethora of cakes and pastries on glass dishes and doilies, decorated cupcakes and cookies of every shape and color, and, in the middle of it all, a tray of fresh, hot cinnamon buns. Owen eyed them longingly, completely in awe. He had never been so close to anything remotely as beautiful as the expensive cakes before him. He pressed his hands to the glass and smiled up at Jehan.

            “Thanks for showing me,” he said, taking his hand again, meaning to leave. But Jehan stayed at the counter, the baker approaching him.

            “Good morning! May I help you?” he asked.

            “I’d like the biggest, hottest, sweetest cinnamon bun you’ve got, with extra frosting, please,” he said with a smile. Owen’s eyes blew wide, his little mouth hanging open in complete and total disbelief.

            “Of course! Will you be taking it here, or shall I put it in a box?”

            “Here, please,” he replied. “On a china dish,” The baker smiled and walked to the back of the shop, returning a moment later with a massive bun on a dish, complete with extra frosting and two forks. He set it down on one of the tables, and Owen bounced onto the wrought iron chair, sitting on his knees and gazing at the pastry before him.

            “Well!” Jehan laughed. “Are you going to eat it or look at it?!” Owen took a fork carefully, and looked up at Jehan one last time, just to be sure he wasn’t dreaming, or being pranked. He stuck the fork prongs into the soft, doughy bun, steam dancing through the air above the hunk as he brought it to his mouth, almost too big to fit. He ate it slowly, and tears came to his eyes. When he was finished chewing, he sat with is eyes closed for a long moment.

            “How is it?” Jehan asked quietly.

            “It’s the best thing I ever ate in my whole life,” he said, wiping joyous tears from his eyes. “Is it real? Is this real life?” Jehan asked.

            “I think so!” he replied, giving himself a joking pinch to ‘wake up’. Owen giggled.

            “Hurry and eat, before it gets cold!” he prompted. Owen looked down at the cinnamon bun.

            “I can have more?” he asked.

            “Yes of course! It’s all yours!”

            “You have to share it with me though,” he said. “I’m too small to eat it all, I’ll explode!”

            “Alright,” Jehan agreed with a grin. “We will share it,” he took a piece of the pastry on his own fork, and together, he and Owen ate the entire bun, leaving the bakery very full…and very happy.

 

—o0o—

 

“I liked that story,” Feuilly said with a smile, turning the camera over in his hands. He popped open the film compartment, and found a roll still inside. “What’s this?” he asked.

            “It’s a roll of film, my darling. Even you are not _that_ young!” Jehan laughed.

            “Yes I know that, but what’s on it?” he asked

            “I’m not sure…I doubt it will develop now anyway. It’s over 100 years old!”

            “Well let’s try! We’ll take it to the drug store!” he stood, excited, and Jehan did the same, heading out to the car.

 

When the photos were developed, Feuilly was in awe. The entire film was filled with pictures of children, the newsies, sitting together, laughing, talking, playing games in the streets of New York city. Some of them were posed, all of the boys standing in an organized group, others were not, single children sitting on stacks of papers, shouting the daily headline on the corners, sharing secrets in the run-down newsboy house. But Feuilly’s favorite was the picture of the little boy with white-blonde hair, his two front teeth missing as he grinned, holding up a newspaper nearly as big as he was. The headline read “Newsboy Strike Ends after 14 Days”.

            “This is him,” Feuilly said with a grin, showing Jehan the glossy photograph. He nodded.

            “That’s Owen!” he replied with a bright smile. Seeing the little boy brought such fond memories flooding back to him. He look the photo from Feuilly and held in, looking at it, running his fingers over the little boy’s face.

            “What happened to him after that?” Feuilly asked. “What did Owen do after being a newsboy? Do you know?”

            “Yes. He was a very talented artist. The World hired him to draw political cartoons when he was 16. He became very famous, actually!” he dug into his box again, resurfacing a moment later with a newspaper clipping depicting an illustration of a group of working men, all of them raising a fist. Above the drawing read “All for One and One for All! One Big Union!”

“That’s so cool!” Feuilly smiled.

“Yes. He was wonderful. I wrote to him until he died, just a few years ago, actually. 1983. He was 91,”

“I thought you said this story didn’t have any dead people in it!” Feuilly said, pulling Jehan into another hug.

“People die, Feuilly. But it isn’t always sad. Owen had a very long, very happy life. He left happy memories,” he smiled.

“Good,” he kissed Jehan’s hair. “I hope all your new memories are happy ones.”

“I think they will be,” he replied. “So long as you’re in them, anyway.”

 

 

 

 

~That's it for now, everybody!  If this gets popular with lots of comments/people ask for me to continue, I may add more, but for now, that's a wrap!  I hope you enjoyed the story!  Tell me which year was your favorite!  Thank you!


	7. 1940

It was after midnight when Jehan heard the quiet knock on his door. He felt his breathing hitch, nervous, sweat beading on his neck as he lit the lamp, making to open the door.

            He was expecting visitors, but he wasn’t exactly sure if the knock on the door was from them. It could have just as easily been a military officer, a red patch on his arm, a gun at his hip, ready to snatch Jehan away, the way they did with all of the ‘traitors’.

            The Germans had occupied France only a few months ago, and already they had cracked down on the Jewish refugees who fled to Paris looking for safety, only to find themselves cornered again. Jehan, who had never been a fan of conflict, immediately wished to help the Jewish people who were being treated so poorly…and he wasn’t even aware of the concentration camps, opting to stay out of things as much as possible…but still help the people who needed it most.

            He took a deep breath and put on a confused expression, hoping that, if he were faced with a Nazi officer, they would see his confusion and leave him be…

            But when he opened the door, he saw exactly the people he was expecting: an older man and a young girl, both frightened and shivering in the cold. Jehan ushered them inside, peering out the door to be sure they were not being watched before closing it and turning off the lamp.

            “You swear you will keep her safe?” the old man said in a hushed grumble, looking to Jehan from under bushy grey eyebrows, tears shining in his eyes.

            “I will do everything in my power to ensure her safety,” he replied.

            “You will not turn her in,” he said, not so much of an ask, but a tell. Jehan nodded.

            “I promise,” he smiled in a sad sort of way as the old man hugged his granddaughter tightly, knowing it would probably be the last time they saw each other. The Nazis did not discriminate, and even a kind old man was in grave danger.

            “Zayde, will you bring mama and papa?” the little girl asked in a whisper. Jehan looked away. The old man had told him his son and his wife had been caught seeking refuge for their family in Austria, and that they had been sent to Auschwitz. They were probably already gone.

            “Yes, my darling, I will fetch your mama and papa, but you must not speak about them or about me. Remember what we talked about. You will pretend Monsieur Jehan is your papa until I come back,” he said in a whisper, straightening the little girl’s collar. “Do you remember the rest of the story?” Jehan wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

            “My mama died when I was born, and we just moved to this house from Province so papa could get a better job,”

            “Good girl. And what is your name?”

            “Beth—”

            “No! Not Beth! You must not say your name is Beth! Promise!”

            “I promise,”

            “Good girl. Now what is your _new_ name?”

            “Abby,”

            “That’s right. My good girl. I love you so,”

            “I love you too, Zayde!” she cooed, giving the man a final hug.

            “Thank you, Monsieur,” he said as he stood, offering Jehan a hand to shake, but instead, Jehan fell in for a hug.

            “God bless you,” Jehan said as he embraced the man.

            “Thank you,” he said again before finally slipping from Jehan’s little house, leaving his granddaughter in the hands of a skittish ‘young’ man he hardly knew.

 

The moment he was gone, Jehan turned to the little girl and offered her a smile.

            “Hello, my darling,” he said quietly. She blinked her big brown eyes. Jehan wasn’t sure what to do.

            “Are you sleepy? I’ve made up the spare bedroom just for you,” he said. That elicited a small smile from the little girl. “Would you like to see?” she nodded, and Jehan directed her to the stairs.

            “The room just to the left,” she listened, and crept down the hall quietly, into the bedroom, which Jehan had prepared for her just so, with brand-new sheets and a down comforter to keep out the chill.

            Jehan had owned the same little house for many years. Though he had moved around quite a bit in his long life, he always kept his little house on the edge of Paris, just down the street from the church he used to work in, only a day’s walk away from the church he had grown up in, now abandoned and overgrown. It was a tiny house, with only a single room downstairs, and the upstairs split into two small bedrooms, but it was sturdy and strong and suited him very well. It had been a friend to him, a constant he could always go back to, and that was comforting to him.

            “This is all my room?” Beth—Abby—asked quietly.

            “All for you. There are new clothes as well, if you’d like to see,” he opened the small chest of drawers at the foot of the bed, pulling a woolen dress out and holding it up for Abby to see. She grinned, showing off two missing front teeth.

            “There is more?” she asked when Jehan turned to the dresser again.

            “Oh yes, but to bed now, it is very late. I will show you more in the morning,” he smiled, helping the child unbutton her dress before shutting the door, allowing her privacy to change into the nightgown he had laid out on the bedspread for her.

When she and her grandfather fled their home, they left everything behind. She came with only the thin cotton dress and old worn coat she was wearing. But Jehan didn’t mind. He had quite a bit of money, and quite little to do with it. He was overjoyed to spend it on someone so in need of it.

            “Monsieur—er—papa?” she asked a moment later, peeking around the door.

            “Yes, my dear?” Jehan replied,

            “Can you stay with me?” she asked, wringing her little hands, tears in her eyes. “I am very scared,”

            “Oh…Yes of course. I will sit here in this chair and I will read my book,” he smiled, walking Abby to bed and tucking her in under the covers. “There, nice and safe and cozy,”

            “You will stay all night? Until the sun comes up?” she asked, tears in her eyes.

            “I will,” he replied.

            “You promise?”

            “I promise,”

            “Pinky?” she asked, raising her pinky finger up and out of the covers. Jehan smiled again and took her pinky in his.

            “Pinky promise,”

            With that, Abby was pleased, and snuggled up under the blankets as Jehan sat in the armchair by the window, using the light from the streetlamp to read his book. Abby was asleep in just a minute, and Jehan followed suit shortly after, balled up in the armchair, his book in his lap.

 

—o0o—

 

Abby woke the next morning, frightened when Jehan was not in the chair by the window.

            “Papa?” she called, feeling odd calling a stranger that, but she knew if anyone, even a neighbor or someone passing by, heard something out of the ordinary, she could be taken away by the scary men with the red bands around their arms.

            When Jehan heard the little girl call, he rushed back up the stairs, throwing the door open, the teacup in his hand spilled all over the saucer.

            “What’s wrong?” he asked, still in his own nightclothes, his hair all a mess from sleeping in such a strange position in the armchair. He looked completely disheveled, not to mention the tea dripping from his hand and the wild startle in his eyes, and Abby couldn’t help but laugh. Jehan relaxed when she did, and smiled.

            “I made you tea,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “but I suppose I ought to fetch you another one,” Abby laughed and reached for the teacup.

            “No this one is good!” she said, taking a sip.

            “I’m sorry I left this morning, but you were sleeping so nicely, I didn’t want to wake you up,”

            “That’s okay,” she replied, continuing to sip her tea, the teacup filling her little hands. Her grandfather told Jehan she was just shy of her tenth birthday, but she looked younger than that. Jehan would have guessed 7 or 8. She was very sweet, with curly hair and fair skin, and a tiny upturned nose that made her look like a little fairy. Jehan couldn’t imagine why anyone would wish her dead or imprisoned, and yet she had to shed her identity and hide with a stranger to keep safe.

            After finishing her tea, Abby looked up to Jehan,

            “Will my Zayde be back today?” she asked. Jehan felt his chest tighten. What was he to say? He didn’t want to lie, but at the same time, he did not wish to get the little girl’s hopes up or upset her with the truth, that her grandfather, as well as her parents, were probably in grave danger, if not already gone.

            “Probably not today,” he replied after thinking for a moment, “and probably not for a long while. You’ll have to stay here with me. But I will do whatever I can to make sure you are happy while you’re here,” he smiled, and Abby nodded sadly. She began to cry, and Jehan felt terribly sorry for her, so alone in a world run by evil men who wished her—and her people—away.

            “Abby,” he asked after a quiet moment. “Beth,” he added in a hushed tone, giving the little girl a wink when she looked up. That made her smile. “What would you like to do? We could do anything at all. What would make you happy?”

            “Anything?”

            “Anything. We could go someplace, or do something, or buy something,” Jehan suggested. He hadn’t spent much time around children since Owen in 1899, almost 40 years ago. He wasn’t sure what they liked to do.

            “Could we feed ducks?” she asked. Jehan smiled. Of all the things she could have asked for—exquisite dinners, a pony, extravagant dresses, diamonds, pearls—she asked to feed the ducks in the park at the pond.

            “Of course we could!” she clapped her hands together. “Why don’t we find something nice to wear first. You can look at your new things,” she grinned, and crawled to the foot of the bed while Jehan opened the dresser, taking out three different dresses, all in different, bright colors, as well as two new coats, thick and down. Then came a bundle of striped stockings and four pairs of shiny shoes, brown, black, white, and red.

            “These are mine?” she asked. Jehan nodded. “You are rich,” she said quietly, more to herself than Jehan.

            “Do not worry yourself over that. Now change, and when you’re finished, come downstairs and we’ll go for a walk to the pond in the park,” she nodded, and Jehan left her, quickly changing himself, and brushing his hair before heading downstairs. The color drained from his face when he heard the urgent knock on the door.

            He looked to the staircase before opening it, to be sure Abby was safely upstairs and not frightened and looking for him. When he opened the door, he was met with a military officer, in uniform, wearing the Nazi insignia on his arm and chest. Jehan did his best not to appear frightened. He smiled.

            “Good morning,” he said. “Would you like to come in?”

            “No, Sir, I am here to collect information for the census. Are you the only inhabitant of this home?” he asked over his clipboard. Jehan panicked, his mind raced. Should he mention Beth? If he didn’t and they came around again, they would suspect she was a refugee. He decided it best to follow through with the act. She was his daughter.

            “I am the only adult,” he began, “but I have a small daughter as well. She is upstairs,” he explained. He felt himself shaking, but dared not show any outward fear.

            “If you would list your full name, your daughter’s full name, and the name of anyone else living here, that will be all.

            “Yes of course,” Jehan said, taking the clipboard and pen, writing his own name, as well as ‘Abigail Prouvaire’ below.

            “And your wife?” the man asked.

            “Dead,” he replied shortly. It wasn’t a lie. He had been married before, and after a few hundred years, most everyone he knew was dead. Except for him…

            “I’m sorry,” he said, much to Jehan’s surprise. The military men that patrolled Paris always seemed so frightening and stone-like, robotic, inhuman in their cruelty. But it seemed this man was only in costume, acting a part, a child playing war. His eyes were kind, once Jehan built the courage to look into them, and he was sorry that life had placed him in such a cruel place, that his existence had been shaped in such a hateful way. The man only looked to be about 25, the age Jehan appeared himself. They could have been friends.

            “That is alright,” he replied with a small smile. “Be sure to treasure your family,”

            “Have a good day, Monsieur,” he took the clipboard and turned to leave, and, to Jehan’s surprise and relief, he did not offer a ‘heil’. Perhaps he really was different from the rest… Jehan closed the door and let out a massive sigh of relief. They were safe. Abby walked cautiously down the stairs.

            “Has he gone away?” she whispered, fearful.

            “He has,” he said. “He was only collecting a census,”

            “What’s that?”

            “It’s how they count the people in an area. I wrote down my name and ‘Abigail Prouvaire,’ that’s all,”

            “I hid under the bed when I saw him out the window,” she explained,

            “You are very brave,” he smiled. “Are you ready to feed the ducks?”

            “Yes please!” she cooed. They left the house together, hand in hand.

 

—o0o—

 

“Is this story sad too?” Feuilly asked, running his fingers over the felt star, so sweet and small, it would have been pretty, a patch for a child’s backpack, had it not stood for the horrors of anti-Semitism.

            “Well…I suppose in some ways it is…I think all stories of the Nazis and what they did are sad,” Jehan replied, looking at one of the old photographs, Beth smiling happily as she tossed stale bread to the ducks in the pond. “Beth stayed with me for a long while…Until she was seventeen. We both thought her family had been killed. But one day, after the war ended, a women knocked on the door,”

            “Beth’s mom?” Feuilly guessed with a smile. Jehan nodded.

            “The rest of her family had been killed. The Nazis spared her because she was a nurse. She delivered babies in the concentration camp. Beth’s grandfather never saw his son or Beth’s mother again, so nobody knew where she was. Her mother was searching for her for years,”

            “How did she find you?” Feuilly asked. Finding one little girl in Paris with no idea what name she was using seemed near impossible.

            “The soldier who came to my door for the census!” he smiled. “His name was Rolf, and he stayed in Paris after the war ended. He was forced into service of the Third Reich under punishment of death, but after the war ended, he wanted nothing to do with any of them. He turned in some of the worst Nazis. But anyway, he was working as an inspector for Paris, and Beth’s mother just happened to ask him about a girl with big brown eyes and curly hair, with an upturned nose and rosy cheeks. And Rolf remembered!”

            “After all that time?”

            “Well, Rolf was always stationed in town. We passed him on the street most days. He got to know us, and after the war, he would stop in for tea every so often,”

            “So you made friends with him after all?” Feuilly asked. Jehan shrugged.

            “I suppose I did! He was not a bad fellow, not at all, and he was always telling Beth how terribly sorry he was for everything his country and people had done. I do think Beth forgave him, though. She called him Uncle after a while! He brought Beth’s mother right to my house,”

            “Do you hear from her after that? Beth, I mean?

            “I was married to her granddaughter,” Jehan recalled with a grin.

            “This Abigail?” Feuilly asked, retrieving the wedding picture from the ‘90s. Jehan nodded.

            “Beth named her daughter Abigail, after what I called her during the war, and then she named her daughter Abigail as well. We had talked about having a baby, too, and calling _her_ Abby, but…” he trailed off, holding the picture of himself and the young woman in her wedding dress . How he missed her, his Abby.

            “I’m sorry, Love Bug,” Feuilly took Jehan into his arms and held him there.

            “That’s alright,” he replied after a moment, pulling away and placing the felt star back into the box. “People die, that’s how the world works,”

            “She knew, then. About you, I mean,”

            “Yes…All of them did—Beth, her daughter, and my Abby. Beth was very smart. She asked me when she was very little why I never had a birthday party, and why my face wasn’t wrinkly…little children questions like that. I used to just brush it off, tell her I didn’t want a party or presents, or that I forgot, but when she was 16, she wouldn’t hear it anymore and pressed me…And I showed her this box! Well, not this _exact_ box, boxes do not last very long, I’ve had to replace it over the years,” he chuckled. “But she knew, and her daughter wound up knowing after a while…Beth and I stayed rather close…And I’ve told anyone I’ve married…After they found the box.”

            “How many times have you been married?” Feuilly asked. Jehan answered immediately.

            “Three, including you, or four, if you include my pretend wedding to Louis,”

            “Hey, you called yourself Abigail during that, too!”

            “That’s why I told Beth’s grandfather to teach her that name before coming to me,” he laughed. “I knew I would remember it! I’m terrible at remembering names, you know, at first, anyway.”

            “Well you have ten lives worth of names in your head already!” he chuckled.

            “I never thought of it that way…I suppose that’s right!” he thought for a moment. “I always thought it was strange, how something as silly as me making up a name could impact someone five generations later. It really makes you realize how much of an impact you have on the world,”

            “That is sort of weird,” Feuilly agreed. “But also sort of cool.” They were quiet for a moment, thumbing through the short stack of wedding photos.

            “So you married me, you were married to Abigail, and who was the third?”

            “Well I’ll have to tell you, won’t I?” he reached back into the box.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
For a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first chapter as a one shot and published it with a collection of one shots, but I liked the idea so I decided to just keep writing it, making each chapter a different story, a different memento from Jehan's 'box of lives', and a different time period. 
> 
> If you'd like to suggest a favorite historical event, French or not, share it and I'll try to include it somehow!


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